Trump Presses Putin on Russian Meddling in U.S. Election

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President Trump spoke with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia at the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany.CreditCreditStephen Crowley/The New York Times

By The New York Times

July 7, 2017

Right Now:President Trump pressed Vladimir V. Putin on Russia’s interference in the 2016 United States election but did not dwell on the subject. Their encounter lasted two hours and 15 minutes, far longer than expected.

• Mr. Trump’s decision to raise the issue — at the start of their long-anticipated meeting — was a big shift. Only a day earlier, Mr. Trump expressed his doubts about the extent of Russian meddling.

• Much of the time was spent on Syria. The meeting went on so long that Melania Trump, the first lady, checked in to get Mr. Trump back on his schedule. It didn’t work; the meeting continued for another hour.

• Mr. Putin denied interfering in the election, and he asked for evidence. Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson said the disagreement might be “intractable,” but that the two countries should try to “move forward.”

• The larger gathering of the G-20 leading economies will focus on high-profile issues like climate change, global trade, North Korea, Syria and Ukraine.

• Tens of thousands of protesters turned out in the host city, after a demonstration Thursday night, called “Welcome to Hell,” turned violent. Both the police and demonstrators reported injuries, and cars were set on fire.

Trump raised election interference.

In a major shift, Mr. Trump pressed Mr. Putin on his country’s meddling in the 2016 election, Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson told reporters after a long meeting between the two leaders on Friday.

But his Russian counterpart spun the exchange differently — claiming that the president “accepts” Mr. Putin’s oft-repeated denials that he had anything to do with attempting to swing the 2016 election to Mr. Trump.

“He began by raising the concern of the American people of Russian interference in the 2016 election,” Mr. Tillerson, who was present at the meeting, said of Mr. Trump. “He pressed him more than once.”

“President Trump said that this campaign has already taken on a rather strange character, because over the many months that these accusations have been made, not a single fact has been presented,” Mr. Lavrov said. “President Trump said that he had heard the clear statements from President Putin about this being untrue, that the Russian leadership did not interfere in the election, and that he accepts these statements.”

Mr. Lavrov, a veteran diplomatic infighter, added one more detail: Mr. Trump, he said, had conceded “that certain circles in the U.S. are still exaggerating, although they cannot prove this, the topic of Russia’s interference with the U.S. election.”

An email to a spokesman for Mr. Trump wasn’t immediately returned.

As recently as Thursday, Mr. Trump – who has vehemently denied that Moscow played any role in his victory — conceded that Russia might have had some hand in trying to sway the election, but he also left open the possibility that other countries had taken similar actions.

Mr. Tillerson said that after Mr. Putin asked for evidence of Russian meddling, Mr. Trump moved on to other topics, notably Syria. Mr. Trump, he said, was more concerned with the future than the past.

American officials would continue to discuss a “framework” for an agreement with Mr. Putin to forswear such actions in the future, he added.

Mr. Tillerson was less than sanguine about the prospects of ever getting Russia to admit meddling. “It may be simply an intractable disagreement at this point,” he said.

— Glenn Thrush and Neil MacFarquhar

They met for longer than expected.

Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin met for so long that not even Mr. Trump’s wife, Melania, could get between them.

A lengthy back and forth on Syria took up much of the time, Mr. Tillerson said.

At one point, after an hour of talk, the first lady stuck her head through the door to announce that Mr. Trump needed to wrap the meeting up because of his other scheduling demands. Her interruption was not heeded.

“They sent in the first lady one time to see if we can get them out of there,” Mr. Tillerson recalled. “We went another hour after she came to get us, so I guess she failed.” — Glenn Thrush

A limited cease-fire in Syria was reached.

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Smoke rose around buildings after a reported airstrike on a rebel-held area in the southern Syrian city of Daraa in June.CreditMohamad Abazeed/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The United States and Russia have agreed to a cease-fire in a limited area of southwestern Syria beginning on Sunday, a senior Trump administration official said on Friday after the first face-to-face meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin.

The move would be the latest effort by American and Russian officials to facilitate an agreement to end the six-year civil war in Syria.

Trump administration officials had said that Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin would discuss the idea of partnering to establish “safe zones” in Syria as part of his efforts to usher in a new era of cooperation with Moscow.

The news was first reported by The Associated Press and confirmed by a senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the agreement had not been officially announced.

Mr. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, spoke about the ceasefire agreement later in Hamburg. He said the ceasefire would take effect from midnight to noon local time on Sunday in the areas of Daraa, Quneitra and Sweida. “At first, security around this de-escalation zone will be guaranteed by the forces and means of the Russian military police, in coordination with the Americans and Jordanians,” he said.

The deal was the first indication of a concrete development after the heavily scrutinized meeting with Mr. Putin. — Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Neil MacFarquhar

All eyes were on Trump and Putin.

Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin met on Friday, and while their face-to-face encounter was not officially the main event at the G-20, for many, it might as well have been. It lasted well over two hours, far longer than expected. A “readout,” or summary, of the topics discussed was not immediately available.

Before the meeting, both leaders sat side by side for photographs as journalists shouted questions.

“President Putin and I have been discussing various things, and I think it’s going very well,” Mr. Trump said. “We look forward to a lot of very positive happenings for Russia and for the United States, and for everyone concerned.”

Mr. Putin said he was happy to have the chance to meet Mr. Trump in person. “We spoke over the phone,” he said, “but phone conversations are never enough, definitely.”

He added: “I hope that, as you have said, our meetings will yield positive results.”

Only six people attended the meeting: Mr. Trump and his secretary of state, Rex W. Tillerson; Mr. Putin and his foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov; and two interpreters.

The Russians had agitated to include several more staff members in the meeting, but Mr. Trump’s team had insisted that the meeting be kept small to avoid leaks and competing accounts later, according to an administration official with direct knowledge of the carefully choreographed meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity around the matter.

Protesters got an early start. So did the police.

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Protesters blocked a street in Hamburg, Germany, on Friday.CreditPawel Kopczynski/Reuters

Hamburg awoke on Friday to the buzz of helicopters and the wailing of sirens, as police officers rushed to keep up with protesters who had gathered at the city’s major intersections in an effort to block the routes G-20 leaders were to take to the Messehallen Convention Center, the site of the meeting.

Protesters burned several vehicles and set fire to trash hauling bins overnight, and columns of smoke could be seen rising over the city again early Friday. Taxi drivers were avoiding the city center, some in protest, others to protect their vehicles.

“We remind you that gatherings in the transit corridors will not be tolerated,” the police said on Twitter. The authorities used water cannons to stop the protesters from advancing.

The police presence was enormous near the convention center. In black riot gear including helmets, padding and sometimes face masks, the police stood in small groups in a quiet face-off with civilians who might or might not have been demonstrators. The authorities have said that 20,000 police officers would be deployed.

Many streets in and around the city center — which is famous for its extreme left-wing scene — were blocked to ordinary traffic, though nearby public transport stations were open, albeit with increased security patrols.

Demonstrations Thursday night turned violent after the police moved in to separate a group wearing balaclavas and masks — which German law forbids during public protests — in a section of the 12,000 people who had filled the streets outside the security perimeter. — Melissa Eddy and Steven Erlanger

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Protests continued in Hamburg, Germany, as world leaders met for the Group of 20 summit.CreditCreditAlexander Koerner/Getty Images

The ‘family’ posed for a group photo.

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Leaders at the Group of 20 summit meeting in Hamburg, Germany, after posing for a group photograph.CreditStephen Crowley/The New York Times

After finally corralling the leaders to stand for the official “family photograph,” and persuading them to stop schmoozing with one another and take their seats, Ms. Merkel delivered a short and relatively anodyne opening statement.

The German chancellor said she hoped that the summit meeting would “contribute to allaying” the “fears, needs and anxieties” of the world’s peoples. “We all know the great global challenges,” she said, “and time is pressing.”

Those in the room represent two-thirds of the world’s population, four-fifths of the world’s gross domestic product and three-quarters of the world’s trade, she said, and the rest of the world expected results.

Mr. Trump was on the side of the group photo, where leaders were mostly arrayed by seniority. Ms. Merkel stood at the center, flanked by the leaders of China, which hosted last year’s G-20 summit meeting, and Argentina, which will host next year’s.

Ms. Merkel noted that the symbol of this meeting — a naval reef knot — was intended to show that the world is interconnected.

“The more you pull on it, the better it holds,” she said. — Steven Erlanger and Alison Smale

What’s on everyone’s mind? Podesta, Trump says.

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John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s former campaign manager. “Everyone here is talking about why John Podesta refused to give the DNC server to the FBI and the CIA,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter on Friday.CreditDrew Angerer/Getty Images

On a day in which he might — or might not — confront Mr. Putin on Russia’s attempts to sway the 2016 election, Mr. Trump decided to mount a diversionary attack against an American adversary.

“Everyone here is talking about why John Podesta refused to give the DNC server to the FBI and the CIA. Disgraceful!” Mr. Trump wrote in a tweet sandwiched between polite happy-to-meet tweets about Mr. Putin, Ms. Merkel, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan.

Mr. Trump’s tweet was off the mark on three counts:

• Mr. Podesta was Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman at the time and had no authority to turn over anything, much less someone else’s emails, to the F.B.I. and C.I.A.

• The Democratic National Committee, which was leery of the F.B.I. because of its inquiry into Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server, did deny investigators access to their servers. But it gave the bureau information that later pointed to Moscow’s interference in the election, according to congressional testimony from James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director. — Glenn Thrush

Protests force Melania Trump to stay at her guesthouse.

The first lady, Melania Trump, scrapped her public schedule on Friday because the local police, who are dealing with protests, would not allow her to leave the guesthouse where she and Mr. Trump are staying because of security concerns, her spokeswoman said.

Mrs. Trump, who was to attend a boat tour, a luncheon and a visit to a climate-control facility with the spouses of other G-20 leaders, instead stayed cloistered in the residence, away from the mayhem. “She was very much looking forward to the day,” said the spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham.

While other world leaders and their delegations stayed in hotels near the site of the summit meeting, the Trumps are staying at a guesthouse in another area.

Protesters poured through the streets near the convention center on Friday carrying banners with anti-globalization messages and some anti-Trump slogans. “Refugees welcome,” one sign said, while others read “No G-20” and other still insulted Mr. Trump in colorful terms.

Students cut class to take a stand in Hamburg.

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Students protesting in Hamburg on Friday.CreditFabrizio Bensch/Reuters

Walking along the river in Hamburg, hundreds of students skipped their classes to take part in a peaceful demonstration, chanting, “One solution, revolution” and protesting against education systems in Germany and elsewhere.

“I’m here because I oppose how education in Germany is structured, that they’re training us to be workers and not thinkers,” said Hendro Myrow, 18, a student in Hamburg.

Lisa Müller, who helped organize the march, said its leaders had tried to draw as many students as possible. “The whole system of capitalism is the problem, because you need losers and winners, and that goes on at school as well,” she said. “It’s about learning one thing but not what you want to learn.”

Groups of riot police officers observed the march as it progressed. Police trucks blocked several streets, as various protest leaders took turns with a loudspeaker to criticize the education system, capitalism and the G-20. — David Shimer